Sugar hit

Author’s lectures create conversation and controversy

Sugar is the food manufacturers’ equivalent to nicotine—its addictive and, unlike cigarettes, embedded in everything we eat. This message from David Gillespie, who spoke at a public lecture and at Forum on Avondale College of Higher Education’s Lake Macquarie campus this past week, has created conversation and controversy.

The conversation has centred on diet and lifestyle after David revealed his consisted largely of high animal protein with little or no fruit and little or no exercise.

The controversy? David gave a half tick to whole grain wheat flake biscuits such as Weet-Bix but a cross to soy milk such as So Good, both staples of Sanitarium Health and Wellbeing, an entity, like Avondale, owned by the Seventh-day Adventist Church.

So, to give some perspective, two perspectives: one from a nutritionist and one from a student.

The nutritionist

Dr Robyn Pearce
Senior lecturer in nutrition and food science
School of Education
Avondale College of Higher Education

To avoid toxic and addictive effects of the sugar, fructose, David Gillespie offered clear rules in his Sweet Poison lectures:

• Avoid processed foods that contain more than three grams of sugars per 100 grams.
• Avoid beverages that contain more than zero grams of sugars per 100 millilitres. Plain milk is allowed.
• Limit consumption to two serves of whole fruit per day.

Clear rules and strategies facilitate behaviour change. Would we be better off if we used David’s?

Eating fewer desserts, high-sugar cereals and sugary drinks and more vegetables can improve health.

Will our health be impaired significantly if our whole grain wheat flake biscuits contain 3.3 grams of total sugars per 100 grams rather than 0.7 grams per 100 grams, when our serving size is 30 grams? Probably not.

A focus on fructose eliminates sweet, rich foods high in fat, but neglects the other “hyperpalatable” fat and salt combinations discussed by former Food and Drug Administration commissioner Dr David Kessler in The End of Overeating: Taking Control of the Insatiable American Appetite.

David Gillespie’s rules allow a high animal protein eating pattern, when there is increasing evidence of the benefits of plant-based eating for our health and environmental sustainability.

His book title is catchy; his message trendy; his testimony convincing. Indeed, eliminating sugar from your diet is decent health advice—and he makes it sound easy. But David Gillespie misses the mark in his seminars condemning sugar consumption.

The student

Josh Dye
Bachelor of Arts (communication and international poverty and development studies) student
Avondale College of Higher Education

David Gillespie presents strong, coherent evidence for cutting sugar from your diet.

His testimony is irrefutable and compelling—he lost 40 kilograms and found new zest for life after eliminating sugar from his diet. Sugar—fructose in particular—is unhealthy, he says, and it is the primary cause of weight gain.

However, David’s health message appears unbalanced.

He declares fast food acceptable—as long as you don’t add tomato sauce, due to its high sugar content.

He chooses bacon and eggs for breakfast because the sugar content in some wheat biscuits goes beyond his three per cent limit.

Full-cream milk is preferable to soy milk, he says. Why? Because the sucrose in soy milk breaks down partly into fructose.

David also says juicing fruit and vegetables removes essential nutrients but then reveals he eats only cooked vegetables because he doesn’t like raw food.

It seems he’s right—sugar can be addictive, dangerous, and, yes, poisonous. But does its absence guarantee a healthy diet?